Yoga is your time to relax and move and your choices in clothing should be practical and reflect your practice. Wearing clothes that are uncomfortable, that don’t give you the support you need, or slide around while you’re doing yoga can be annoying and distracting. To avoid this, there are a few factors that you need to keep in mind when buying your clothes for yoga.

Breathe

When buying yoga clothes, you must be able to breathe. This means clothes that stretch and are made of fabrics that let out heat. This is particularly important when you are in the middle of an intensive yoga session, such as Bikram or a combination yoga and dance class.

This means finding yoga clothes that are made from a light, durable fabric that feels good for you. Yoga is about being comfortable in your body and your practice, and your clothing choices should respect that.

Fashion Choices

All you really need for yoga is a top and pants. That sounds simple, but it gets complicated fast. You must be comfortable in your yoga clothes, so that means choosing a fit that takes into consideration your size, body shape, and your comfort with exposing skin. If you choose a tiny, tightly fitted outfit and you aren’t perfectly confident in it, there’s no way you will be confident while doing downward dog.

Yoga poses can twist you into a variety of positions. For this reason, clothes should not be baggy, or they could fall off during one of the moves! Choose clothes that are closely fitted, but not so tight that they limit your range of motion.

There is a bewildering range of yoga clothes out there, from little crop tops and short pants to long, flowing outfits that cover you from neck to shin. There is no hard and fast rule for what you should wear during class. It’s completely up to you to decide what you are comfortable wearing and what best fits with the type of yoga you practice.

What Goes Underneath Your Clothes

The final issues when it comes to women’s clothing for yoga is support. Like with any other exercise, you will need to wear a sports bra for comfort and to avoid wardrobe malfunctions. A sports bra will also create separation between the breasts, which increases air flow and reduces the risk of chaffing or rashes.

Most types of yoga are not high impact, so you do not have to wear a heavy-duty bra. As with most clothing choices in yoga, the key factors are your comfort level and ability to move easily, so choose with this criteria in mind.

Yoga is a gentle form of exercise, meant to encourage comfort and relaxation in those who practice it. Clothing choices during yoga must follow the same principles, to be comfortable and supportive while still being appropriate for the types of movement you will perform. Choosing clothes for yoga can seem difficult, but really, it’s based on the preferences of the individual, combined with the demands of the type of yoga they enjoy. So, carefully choose your clothing based on your needs, not anyone else’s.

Sometimes, we just need to cleanse, reboot and detoxify both physically and mentally. Yoga twist poses can help. The best times to detox are during the beginning of the year, spring, on the new moon, or the waning moon phase. Yoga twist poses are excellent at aiding a detox. You can even do these at the end of the night to clear away any excess toxin build up from the day.

Twists move the shoulders to face in an opposing direction of the hips. Prepare for these poses by building heat in the body, a concept called tapas in yoga. Tapas relates to self-discipline, which seems to be an appropriate quality to cultivate when limiting and cleansing toxins from your body.

Yoga sequences that enlist core strength are great ways to build tapas to prep for detoxing poses. This might look like rounds of sun salutation A and B, plank sequences, and boat sequences. Warming up the body also protects you from harming the spine, since twists manipulate this area of the body

To build heat, yoga twists work by aiding and stimulating your digestive organs and increasing detoxification systems. In a twist, you compress your digestive organs, which causes a lack of circulation. Upon releasing the twist, fresh blood rushes into your digestive organs. This fresh blood increases your body’s oxygen and nutrients. Twisting will:

2. Cleanse the cells of any built up waste because with increased circulation comes increased cellular detoxification.

3. Move stagnated impurities through your digestive tract.

4. Push out gas and help you eliminate waste.

Never force any of these twists. Listen to your body and only go further into the pose on an exhale. You should never feel any sharp pain, if you do, release the twist.

Chair Twist

Start in chair pose. Inhale, and turn on the exhale. Use your core to turn instead of your chest muscles to avoid pulling a chest muscle! Repeat on both sides.

This pose stimulates: liver, spleen, and digestive system

Improves: the elimination process

One of your hips will try to come forward but square it back in line with the front of the room. Your knees should also be in the same line.

Crescent Twist

Start in crescent pose: lunge with arms above you, palms facing each other. Bring hands to prayer position as you twist to rest the forearm against the opposite outer thigh. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute Repeat on both sides.

Benefits: deeper circulation in the legs, flushes out the blood and lymph system

Wide-legged Forward Fold with Twist

Start with hands on hips in mountain pose. Jump or walk legs out to a wide stance. Slowly bend torso forward and place hands on the floor. Press your left hand into the ground while reaching the right hand upwards.